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Israel kills top militant in Gaza air strike

Posted on: Sunday, 25 September 2005, 13:18 CDT

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed a top Islamic Jihad commander in an air strike on Sunday and arrested more than 200 suspected militants after warning Palestinians of a crushing response to rocket attacks from Gaza.

The strike on a car along Gaza's coastal road was launched soon after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud party convened to consider whether he should soon face a leadership election over a pullout from the territory completed two weeks ago.

The attack killed Mohammed al-Sheikh Khalil, described by Islamic Jihad as one of its "most senior commanders in Palestine." The group called for revenge and its gunmen threatened to abandon a ceasefire in effect since February.

Khalil's deputy, who was not immediately identified, was also killed and four people were wounded, medics said, in part of the worst surge of Israeli-Palestinian violence since the Gaza withdrawal.

Earlier, Israel arrested more than 200 suspected militants in the West Bank as Sharon ordered the army to use any means to stop rocket salvoes from Gaza.

Likud's Central Committee convened in Tel Aviv before a vote on Monday on a motion by Sharon's rightist challenger, Benjamin Netanyahu, to bring the party's primary forward to November.

A party official announced Khalil's death from the podium, drawing applause. Sharon's opponents in the Likud have said the Gaza pullout after five years of Palestinian violence would only bring more cross-border attacks on Israel.

The party vote could turn Israeli politics on its head.

Sharon, who wants the party primary held closer to national parliamentary elections due by late next year, has said "radical extremists" have taken control of the Likud, which he helped to found three decades ago.

He has declined to say whether he would remain in the party if the 3,000-member Central Committee vote goes against him, raising speculation he may bolt and form a new centrist alliance that would tap into mainstream support for the Gaza pullout.

ASSASSINATIONS

In helicopter strikes on Saturday, Israel killed two militants and wounded 20 other Palestinians. A helicopter also targeted a building in northern Gaza on Sunday which the military said was used by militants.

Violence surged when a blast on Friday killed 16 people at a Hamas rally in Gaza. One of the victims, a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, died of his wounds on Sunday.

Hamas blamed Israel and militants fired at least 40 rockets into the Jewish state in response, though Israel denied responsibility and the Palestinian Authority said it appeared to be an accident caused by Hamas members carrying explosives.

Sharon ordered the army to do whatever it saw fit after his inner cabinet approved a resumption in assassinations of top militants, suspended in February, and gave a green light for troops to shell Gaza to stop attacks.

"We don't intend here to stage a one-time action, but intend to carry out a continued action, whose aim is to hurt the terrorists and not to let up," he told ministers.

Troops were poised outside the Gaza Strip for a possible ground offensive. In a show of strength, artillery units practiced near the boundary. Israeli media said the army operation was dubbed "First Rain."

Palestinian leaders accused Israel of trying to wreck hopes of reviving peace talks that were kindled by the Gaza pullout.

President Mahmoud Abbas said that if Sharon had ordered the army to use full force it meant: "He doesn't want peace, or security, or negotiations."

(Additional reporting by Corinne Heller in Jerusalem and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah)

Source: REUTERS

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